GDC: Epic's Rein slams publishers over next-gen costs "scare"

Large publishers such as Electronic Arts are "trying to scare people" with their quoted figures for next-generation game development, Epic Games vice president Mark Rein has accused in an exclusive interview with GamesIndustry.biz.

Large publishers such as Electronic Arts are "trying to scare
people" with their quoted figures for next-generation game
development, Epic Games vice president Mark Rein has accused
in an exclusive interview with GamesIndustry.biz.

"We're going to make our next generation games for only 50
per cent more than our last generation games," Rein bullishly
claimed, responding to suggestions from some companies that
average next-gen budgets could run as high as $30 million.

"I guess they just don't have productive tools like we have,"
he went on to suggest. Epic Games will be demonstrating key
new features of its next-generation Unreal Engine 3
technology at GDC this week, which it claims allow designers
and artists to perform tasks which previously required
programmers, thus speeding up the throughput of a studio
significantly.

Rein also struck out at the "snobbish" approach to
next-generation graphics, arguing that the improvement in
graphical quality will be the single most important change to
come about as a result of the next hardware transition.

"There's no question that the graphics are going to be a huge
upgrade," he commented. "You know, people are such snobs,
with this 'oh, it's not about graphics' thing. That's such
nonsense. It's totally about graphics. What's the difference
between the first Metal Gear Solid and the latest Metal Gear
Solid? Right, it's - wow, the graphics!"